Welcome to The Weekend Stream, a relaxing weekly review of notable digital-only catalogue titles. There may be no CD or vinyl, but there's plenty of great new/old music to discover!
Georgia Satellites, Lightnin' in a Bottle: The Official Live Album (Cleveland International/Rhino) (iTunes / Amazon)
Recorded at Cleveland club Peabody's at the end of 1988 - two years after their only hit, the No. 2 smash "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," had fallen off the charts - this blistering set showcases the power of the Satellites as blues-boogie party band. Includes renditions of great covers like "Hippy Hippy Shake" (recently covered by the band for the soundtrack to Cocktail), The Beatles' "Don't Pass Me By," Jerry Lee Lewis' "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and even a set-closing medley of the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" and the blues standard "Shake, Rattle and Roll." (This set's also available on CD, with a vinyl pressing due this summer.)
Depeche Mode, Some Great Reward | The 12" Singles (Warner/Rhino) (iTunes / Amazon)
Are you sensing a pattern? Depeche Mode's latest 12" singles box set goes digital, featuring mixes and extensions from the group's fourth album, including "People Are People," "Master and Servant" and "Blasphemous Rumours."
Elvis Costello & The Roots, Wise Up: Thought Remixes & Reworks (Blue Note) (iTunes / Amazon)
Released on 10" and CD for Record Store Day Black Friday 2013, this companion to Costello and The Roots' collaborative Wise Up Ghost features one of the key band members not on the original album - rapper Black Thought - alongside reworks and "beat interludes" by Karriem Riggins, who'd produced tracks by Common and J Dilla.
Jr. Walker & The All-Stars, Shotgun (Motown) (iTunes / Amazon)
The 1965 dance classic of the same name by saxophonist Walker - who took a turn at vocals when the session singer never showed - is one of Motown's best mid-'60s numbers, topping the soul charts and going Top 5 on Billboard's pop survey. This long player features a dozen sides released in the wake of "Shotgun," like Top 40 hits "Do the Boomerang," "Shake and Fingerpop" and "(I'm a) Road Runner."
La Toya Jackson, My Special Love (Republic) (iTunes / Amazon)
The second album from the Jackson family's middle child is mostly handled, production-wise, by Ollie E. Brown, the drummer best known for his work in Raydio and one-half of "Breakin'...There's No Stoppin' Us" performer Ollie & Jerry. He adds panache to tracks like "Stay the Night" (originally co-written and sung by Billy Ocean) and "I Don't Want You to Go," an Allee Willis/Bruce Roberts number previously taken on by Lani Hall. But you'll also hear some of her famous siblings: youngest brother Randy produces two songs, including the title track (written by Randy, Tito, Jackie and Marlon), while the groovy "Camp Kuchi Kalai" features backing vocals by Janet a year before her own debut solo album.
Angela Bofill, Teaser / Let Me Be the One (Arista)
Teaser: iTunes / Amazon
Let Me Be: iTunes / Amazon
A pair of soul/funk platters from Bofill's tenure on Arista in the late '70s and early '80s. What they lack in hits, each one benefits from pristine writing and production from some of the finest names in '80s R&B: 1983's Teaser is helmed by Narada Michael Walden and his crew of smooth soul providers (also featuring a duet with Johnny Mathis on "You're a Special Part of Me"), while 1984's follow-up Let Me Be the One was overseen by David Frank and Mic Murphy, better known as the dance legends The System.
Andy Williams, Love Theme from "The Godfather" (Columbia) (iTunes / Amazon)
How's this for an offer you can't refuse? The Columbia crooner's vocal version of "Speak Softly, Love" became the highest-charting version of the blockbuster Francis Ford Coppola epic's love theme - as well as the last Top 40 hit of Williams' life. As was tradition for the label's easy-listening legends, the album packs in more great covers of popular tunes, including Paul Williams' "An Old Fashioned Love Song," Bread's "Everything I Own," Badfinger's "Without You" (having soared to No. 1 as done by Harry Nilsson) and even John Lennon's "Imagine."
Jon Anderson / Change We Must (Parlophone) (iTunes / Amazon)
This 1994 effort by the former Yes frontman features orchestral renditions of new tracks and some from Anderson's songbook, from "Hearts" (a deep cut from Yes' 90125) to several songs written with Vangelis - notably "State of Independence," a U.K. hit for Donna Summer.
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These are great suggestions but I wonder if I am missing something...how about posting this "stream" as a playlist on Spotify (and/or elsewhere)? Again, you have doubtless thought of this - and I may have missed the ready alternatives - but, if you would, please remind us...
You can go on streaming and listen to each of the above recommended albums.
Hey Philip,
We were doing Spotify links for awhile on here, but ended up sticking to iTunes/Amazon primarily because a) we assumed most of our readers (being collector nuts like us!) were likely downloading more than streaming anyway, and b) it was the best possible "stand" we could take in light of Spotify just doing a really poor job of paying artists. (That wasn't why Neil Young and others took their catalogues off the service, but I for one am glad their actions encouraged this discussion, and I did end up canceling my paid Spotify subscription, which I'd had since the week they went live in the States.)
Were they to get better at meeting the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers' demands of at least a penny per stream, I can see us reversing course. Again, not seeing Spotify links on a site like ours isn't gonna make or break things for Daniel Ek and company - but I am happy to try to do the right thing here as I see fit.
Thanks for the clarification. Indeed, I'm no advocate for Spotify and spent at least part of my writing career championing the essential role musicians play - for which they deserve to be fairly compensated. I guess what I was getting at, and Spotify was in this case something of an analogy, was that for the TSD "stream" feature to really work as a sampler platform there might be a "one click" way to get it going...but then, again, I may be dreaming...